If you live on the East Coast, then you are probably keeping a close eye on the progress of Hurricane Irene right now. You might live in an area that has not been involved with a hurricane in decades. Now is the time to figure out which of your insurance policies to send a claim to in case your home or property is damaged by a hurricane.
Insurance is tricky. In order for an insurance policy to do you any good, you need to have purchased it long before something bad happens. If your home is damaged by a hurricane, and you buy homeowners insurance after the damage is done, you can expect your insurer to refuse to cover your claims about the damages you are dealing with.
If you are among the people who are currently scribbling your name on the dotted line as fast as you can, before the hurricane hits, you may be in for a shock. Most policies, (of any type of insurance), do not immediately take effect. You might already be paying the premium. However, if the policy isn’t supposed to take effect until next month, and the hurricane causes damages tomorrow, then you are on your own.
Those of you that have insurance should take the time to check and see exactly what your policies will cover. It is better to learn now that your homeowners insurance won’t pay for flooding damages than to assume it will, and be disappointed later on, (as you struggle to fix the problem).
Homeowners insurance will cover the cost of repairing the structure of your home, garage, shed, or driveway. It will cover the cost of replacing damaged walls, pipes, and sometimes even appliances.
Both homeowners and renters insurance will cover the cost of replacing or repairing your property that was located inside your home (or apartment). However, this is only true if you have already given your insurance company a detailed list of all of your valuable property. It helps if you gave your insurer photos of everything, and a list of serial numbers.
You should also check to see if your insurer will give you actual cash value, or replacement cost value, of the property that is damaged beyond repair (or that is gone). There is a big difference between these two concepts, and this will directly affect what you will receive.
Your homeowners insurance will not cover claims due to flooding. For that, you need flood insurance. A good place to start looking into that is www.floodsmart.gov. It generally takes thirty days before a newly purchased flood insurance policy will take affect.
If you happen to already have a hurricane policy, then you will want to know what your deductible will be. This gives you a good idea of what you will have to come up with, out of pocket, before that insurance becomes useful.
Now is a good time to make a list of how to get in touch with your various insurance companies. Make a note of their names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers. Write down your policy numbers. You may want to keep this list on your smartphone, so that you will have it handy when you need to access the information.
Image by Chalky Lives on Flickr